Experimental Analysis of Emergent Dynamics in Complex Networks of Nonlinear Oscillators

The aim of this thesis is to explore and investigate the emergent dynamics of complex networks through a novel and insightful experimental setup realized as a configurable network of chaotic Chua's circuits. In particular part of our work has been devoted to the implementation and characterization of a "2.0 hardware version" of it, where the interconnection network has improved greatly in its main features. In this way the setup has been fully automatized in providing control on network structure and coupling strength. A large set of experiments has been carried out in networks with proportional coupling and arbitrary topology, showing, emergent dynamics encompassing synchronization, patterns and traveling waves, clusters formation. Also, the case of dynamic coupling has been experimentally addressed. The experimental observations have been compared with theoretical results by carrying out a local stability analysis of networks with static and dynamic links. Here we use the Master Stability approach (MSF) and its extensions to the case where the links are of dynamic nature (Proportional Derivative-MSF). Last part of the work has been devoted to the experimental study of cluster synchronization, stimulated by novel theoretical advances based on group theory and network symmetries. A novel network structure referred as "Multiplexed Network" has been experimentally examined, resulting in a great enhancement in synchronization, for which no theoretical models are yet available.